Lemminkäinen Group / Building Construction / Lemcon I-Park Kaluga

A necklace of industrial parks and zones is rising up around Kaluga. And it is reasonable taking into account the region’s strategically advantageous location and active promptness of the regional administration to allow the most optimal conditions for foreign investors. The Finnish company Lemcon has started its own project of industrial park in Kaluga Region, where it is planning to accommodate about 20 new production facilities of Russian and international companies. Lemcon offers western companies an opportunity to enter the Russian market and start their operations quickly and with the minimum risk. We approached with a number of questions the leaders of the Lemcon I-Park project, the General Manager of Lemcon Invest Plc., Alexandr Pitukhin, and the Regional Manager of Lemcon Ltd. Mika Sandin.

- Lemcon has been operating on the Russian market for years. This time the choice was made in favor of Kaluga region. What attracted Lemcon in this part of Russia?

- Kaluga is situated on the crossways of major motor roads and railways only in 180 km from Moscow. This assures an essential vehicle access from the neighbouring markets of Ukraine, Belorussia and Baltic states. The regions administration has chosen the industrial development for the area and during the past few years a number of significant investment projects has been accomplished and the world famous brands such as Volkswagen, Samsung, Lafarge, SAB Miller and others have been allocated there. The regional government has elaborated comfortable investment terms for the coming manufacturing companies. A serious role in our choice played the active and wise investment politics of the local government. Indeed the government support is the most significant factor for the successful realization of the project. We have established good working relationship with the local authorities, ministries and administration offices of Kaluga Region. They are based on confidence and mutual benefit. Two years ago we registered our ownership to the land plot in 20 km away from Kaluga and signed the investment cooperation agreement with administration of the Kaluga Region and Babyninsk district for the accomplishment of rather ambitious development and construction project of the private industrial park.

- Why has Lemcon started the development of its industrial park namely from the construction of engineering communications on the land site?

Mika Sandin: “The quality has always been the visit card of the company. The quality for us is not only the highest level of construction services but also the responsibility before the clients for the offered variety of investment services. That’s why the direction of the concern “Lemminkäinen” to which Lemcon is belonging, has made for the first time in its 100-year history the decision about its own investments to the development and construction of own industrial park in Russia. Only after we ourselves get the contract warranties for the procurement of the necessary amounts of energy and water as well as the whole package of permitting documentation for it we can for sure offer those companies coming to I-Park all connections to the required capacities. This work has been completed in the past year by our local daughter company “Lemcon Invest”.

- What is the state of the progress of your project for today?

A.Pitukhin:”The Lemcon I-Park project covers the territory of over 700 hectares. At the first stage we plan to build up the area of 130 hectares which is privately owned by Lemcon. Up till now the great volume of work that precedes any project construction has been done, i.e. area design plan is approved, we received also the approvals for design of sanitary protective zones, for the initial infrastructure, the technical specification for the connection to the local energy- and water supply systems, as well as all other required approvals and permits. Now we are finishing the construction of external engineering infrastructure of I-Park which is accomplished totally by Lemcon own financing means. The question of infrastructure has always been the priority for us. We understand that the engineering pre-treatment of the land site is the most significant part of the project of industrial park but also the most cash-consuming one, that’s why we tend to complete as soon as possible all the engineering works i.e. the construction of transformer substations, the water treatment and sewage pipe-lines, initial communications and roads etc.. Nowadays it is almost impossible to find a land site with all required engineering infrastructure in Russia, so in this connection I can not keep without underlining the unique nature of the approach of our company to this project.

So seeing that we have preceded so much in the engineering infrastructure construction of Lemcon I-Park’s area, even today we can confidently promise our clients the minimal terms of construction and commissioning of their production and warehouse facilities as well as the guaranteed volumes of energy connections.

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